Drops of Moonlight
by Ava Lux
Summary: Charmed/Buffy/Angel crossover-- When Leo is injured by a demon/vampire hybrid, the Charmed Ones go to the slayer to help to save him, but some things none of them could ever expect change their lives forever. Complete!!
1. Prologue

Drops of Moonlight  
  
Author: Amanda Halliwell Wyatt  
  
Email: charmed337@yahoo.com  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: I'm not Joss Whedon, Aaron Spelling, David Greenwalt, Mutant Enemy (grr, arrgh!) or Spelling Entertainment, so don't sue me. That would be mean and I don't have any money. I only own the characters Jessi, Amanda, and whoever else shows up that you haven't heard of.  
  
Distribution: If you want it, take it. Just tell me.  
  
Summary: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed crossover.  
  
Leo is injured and The Charmed Ones go to the Slayer for help.  
  
Feedback: Welcome. Constructive criticism is welcome, but no flames! Be gentle, this is my first fic.  
  
Set around All Hell Breaks Loose for Charmed, except in my world they brought Prue back. After the Gift for Buffy, except that they brought her back right away, and Glory just....went away. But that has nothing to do with my story.  
  
San Francisco, The Halliwell Manor  
  
Piper sat at the kitchen table, drumming her fingers. Prue looked at her over the newspaper she was holding. She asked what was the matter, in her typical big sister fashion.  
  
"Are you ok, Piper? You seem nervous or something." Piper waited a moment before responding.  
  
"I guess. I'm just a little worried about Leo. He got called away last night, and he hasn't checked in since. He usually tells me if he's going to be away for long, and he promised me that it wouldn't take more than 3 hours."  
  
"Leo? Leo?" Prue tried. Nothing happened.  
  
"I don't know why I'm so worried. It's just a feeling I have, that he's really in trouble or something." Phoebe came down the stairs.  
  
"Whazza matter? Is there a demon? Leme at 'im!" she said sleepily. Prue shook her head. Only her little sister could be that out of it at 10:30 in the morning.  
  
"Piper thinks that Leo is in trouble." Silently they all tromped up to the Book Of Shadows.  
  
The Night Before, 11:00pm  
  
Leo orbed into the Manning house, a little mad about being called on his night off. One of his younger charges, 15-year-old Jessi Manning, was pacing back and forth in her LA living room. As soon as she saw Leo, she said in a rush,  
  
"They took mom to the Sunnydale hospital."  
  
Sunnydale? Leo thought. That was miles away!  
  
"Why is she there?" He asked her gently.  
  
"She saw another witch get attacked in her visions. She had red hair, and was kinda short. That's all mom told me. She left hours ago, and I'm assuming the witch took her to the hospital, because no one called an ambulance. The doctors found puncture marks in her neck, and she was burned badly."  
  
"The first sounds like a vampire, but the second sounds like a demon. They almost never work together, so I have no idea what's going on. Let's go get out where it happened. Did they say where?" Leo asked.  
  
"Rocksworth or something"  
  
"I'll orb us there, ok?" Leo asked. Jessi nodded, and they left.  
  
Leo and Jessi were there seconds later. They were in a clearing by the side of a road. The whole clearing was covered by yellow police tape, and the whole scene was more than a little creepy. Leo saw scorch marks and drops of dried blood on the ground around them. They were only there for a minute or so when something big jumped out of the bushes around them.  
  
Jessi tried to defend herself, but the thing came at her too fast. She was knocked to the ground with her hands behind her. Her powers were useless. Leo had never seen anything like it before. The only thing vaguely human about it was it's general size, but everything else was just. wrong. Its face was contorted like a vampire's, but the rest of the features were decidedly demonic.  
  
In an effort to distract its attention away from his young charge, Leo jumped on its back. It arched, dumping him off onto the ground. Then it turned on him, but not before tossing a fireball in Jessi's direction. It hit her in the stomach, knocking her to the ground, unconscious.  
  
Leo was next. The creature hit him with two little fireballs; one almost missed him, but he couldn't completely dodge it, and it caught his arm. The next got him square in the chest. The creature lumbered away, bored with them.  
  
They were both badly hurt when a shimmering blue light appeared, identical to a Whitelighter's light. A young woman in her early 20s with long, wavy brown hair appeared by the two. She tried healing both of them on the spot, but it only worked on Jessi. The whitelighter took the two up "there".  
  
Sunnydale the Summer's Home  
  
"Promise, you won't tell anyone, Dawnie?" Willow asked Dawn for the hundredth time. "YES!" Dawn shouted, "I won't tell Buffy that you're going to go practice spells an 20 minutes away in Rocksworth. If you're not back in 2 hours, I'm supposed to tell everyone so that we can make sure everything is a-okay. Ok?"  
  
"Thanks, Dawnie." "Why is this so important, anyway? Why can't you just practice here?"  
  
"I want to work in a neutral area, because it's easier to concentrate there. Rocksworth is the nearest place. See you, Dawn!" Willow ran out the front door of the Summer's household, tissue box in hand, for what Dawn assumed was for transportation spells. 


	2. Chapter 2

Rocksworth, about, 11:00pm  
  
Willow had been practicing for a while, and was now working on teleportation. She wasn't really getting anywhere, so she decided to pack it up and head home.  
  
Suddenly, a thing Willow had never seen careened out of the bushes toward her. Before she could even react, it sprung at her; it's demonic face contorting into that of a vampire. As it knocked her to the ground, she screamed. Out of nowhere, it was thrown into a tree. Willow jumped up to see what happened.  
  
A tall woman in her mid 50s ran up to Willow. "Are you alright?" she asked Willow, helping to dust her off.  
  
"Yep." Willow answered. She stuck out her hand. "I'm Willow Rosenberg. Not that I'm not grateful or anything, 'cause I am, but who are you?"  
  
"Kate Manning", the woman took Willow's hand.  
  
"How did you do that? Throw that demon into the tree, I mean?"  
  
"I'm a fellow witch. That's one of my powers. I can move things with my mind if I concentrate really hard. Also the visions. That's how I knew that you needed my help." While Kate explained hereditary witches, the demon started to get up.  
  
Willow was so intrigued by her new found friend's stories that she didn't notice that the demon/vampire mix was sneaking up behind Kate. It threw a fireball at close range into Kate's back. Willow screamed and ran to Xander's car, which she had "borrowed" to get to Rocksworth.  
  
It hit her with one of the fireballs in the back, and the force knocked her over. Kate was still unconscious, and it was starting to feed on her. At a loss, Willow tried the teleportation spell. It worked, and the thing left. It didn't go far, though. She heard it crash down in the surrounding forest.  
  
She dragged Kate to Xander's car and drove to the Sunnydale Hospital, where she told all the doctors the revised, non-demon version of what she knew. Then she headed back to Buffy's.  
  
  
  
"What do you think?" the whitelighter who found Jessi and Leo asked the council anxiously.  
  
"Jessica Manning will be fine. We are detaining her to find out what she knows about the thing that attacked them."  
  
"And Leo?" she asked.  
  
"We can't seem to heal him. Our doctors found traces of darklighter poison in his wounds."  
  
"What?" "Amanda, listen for a minute!" one of the elders, Emily, scolded. She knew what good friends Amanda and Leo had become, but she had to finish explaining what they had learned.  
  
"We're doing the best the we can, but let me be perfectly honest with you. We can only think of one way to save him. By what we've been told, the creature was a cross between a demon and a vampire. The most powerful demon killers are the Charmed Ones, and the most powerful vampire killers are the slayer and her infamous Scooby Gang. Combing the powers of the two groups might be enough to kill it."  
  
"But.." Amanda interrupted  
  
"Let me finish!" Emily said, a bit peeved. "If you don't let me explain, then we can't help Leo."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
  
  
"We also think that since such a combination of vampires and demons isn't natural, that it probably has been made by the Source of all evil. Destroy the demon, and destroy its hold on Leo. Killing it should heal him. The current slayer lives in Sunnydale. Her name is Buffy Summers, and her watcher is Rupert Giles. The Charmed Ones are Prue, Piper, and Phoebe Halliwell, and they're living in San Francisco."  
  
"How much time do we have?"  
  
"A few days, give or take. You should hurry. Since you're such good friends with Leo, you'll get the job done."  
  
"Then I'll see you later." Amanda said.  
  
"One more thing: his wife, Piper, just got the power to blow things up. You might want to be careful, the power gets unpredictable when she gets emotional." Emily added. Then Amanda was gone.  
  
San Francisco  
  
"Ok, now I'm getting upset. Where is he?" Piper asked. They had moved the book downstairs in the parlor so that they could eat some lunch.  
  
"We don't know, honey, but we really do think that he's ok." Phoebe said optimistically.  
  
"Bull." Piper muttered. "You can tell that he's hurt or lying in a ditch somewhere in Pittsburgh."  
  
"Pittsburgh?" Prue asked.  
  
"Oh, I don't know!" Piper yelled, standing.  
  
"Leo! Get down here! Get down here now!" Upset, she blew up the sandwich that was currently in her hand.  
  
"Whoops. Damn. That was a good sandwich, too."  
  
  
  
At that moment, Cole shimmered into the background behind Piper. He heard her yelling at her sisters, and apparently a sandwich, so he decided to leave.  
  
"And where do you think you're going? Tell me what you know, Cole." Piper said without even turning around. Prue snickered. Cole sighed.  
  
"The Source has made a new evil in the form of a demon/vampire hybrid, and he set it loose last night in a nearby town, called Rocksworth. It attacked 3 witches and a whitelighter, but I don't know who they were. It has the power to throw fireballs tainted with darklighter poison, making it all the more deadly." Piper turned about four shades of green before she answered Cole. In a quiet voice, she asked,  
  
"How do I kill it, and how do I know if it's Leo that got hurt?" Cole didn't have an answer for her.  
  
"I'm sure that it's not Leo that got hurt." Phoebe said to her sister.  
  
"How do you know that?" Piper screamed, "You don't!" Then she left her hands drop to her sides, exploding the potted tree next to Cole in the process. Her powers were really starting to get out of control.  
  
  
  
'So these are the Charmed Ones' Amanda mused. She had orbed into the hallway just as Piper started to yell at a man named Cole. She tentatively stepped into the room. Piper spun around at the sound of footsteps.  
  
"And who the hell are you?!"  
  
"My name is Amanda. I'm a friend of Leo's. I'm also a whitelighter."  
  
"Is he ok?" Piper asked.  
  
"For the time being, yes. He was attacked last night." Her voice drifted off as she looked over at Cole.  
  
"He's ok. He knows everything, and he already told us." Prue interjected.  
  
"Ok then." Amanda said, after they had exchanged names.  
  
"There's only one way that they know of to save Leo. Joining the powers of the Charmed Ones and The Vampire Slayer could reverse the effects of the darklighter poison, and save his life."  
  
"Wait! I saw something in here. " Phoebe frantically flipped through the book.  
  
"Here!"  
  
The Slayer  
  
The Vampire Slayer is one girl in a generation who is chosen to fight the vampires and general evils. A Watcher is chosen to guide and train her to fight.  
  
Slayers live a short time, and are usually teenage girls of 15-22 years of age when chosen. Some are raised for their calling from birth, isolated from family, friends, and anything that would distract them from battling the forces of darkness. Even though they usually just deal with vampires, Slayers have been known to save the world on occasion and fight demons.  
  
"Sounds kind of like us." Prue muttered under her breath.  
  
"Where is she? The slayer, I mean."  
  
"In Sunnydale. It's like, an hour and a half away. Her name is Buffy Summers. I was planning to visit her and see if she'll help us." Prue took charge.  
  
"Ok. Amanda and Piper, you can go visit the slayer. Phoebe and Cole will go see what they can find out, and I'll see if I can find out who else got attacked." Everyone split off into different directions and then was gone. 


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to Darklight and Big Bad for the help and suggestions!  
  
  
  
"So you're telling me that a vampire threw fireballs at you? Will, have you started drinking again? 'Cause we both know how well that goes. With both of us, actually." Buffy asked Willow.  
  
"No! I'm totally serious. Do you think I could make this up?" Willow turned around. There was a circle burned through the back of her shirt, and her back was burned. Buffy gasped and instantly turned serious.  
  
"Tell me exactly what happened." Willow explained Kate Manning and the reason that she went so far away. The scolding Willow was waiting for never came.  
  
"I'll call everybody in the morning. Thank god you weren't hurt worse. Are you sure you're ok?"  
  
"Yeah. Just a little tired, I guess."  
  
"Go to bed." Willow's best friend sounded so serious, so that's exactly what she did, while Buffy went out on patrol.  
  
Next Morning-Sunnydale  
  
At around 8:00 the next morning, Buffy called the troops.  
  
Giles arrived at Buffy's house first. He was loaded down with books. BIG books. Then came Anya, Xander, and Tara with the essentials- coffee, doughnuts, and more books. Over the next few hours, they went through books, fought over what Willow's mystery demon could be, and then just gave up.  
  
"We can't find anything, so I say we all go on with our lives, and then meet back here at around.. 2-ish?" Xander suggested. "Anya, Giles, and I need to go to work, and Will and Tara need to go to school. Buffy needs to go do some other stuff. Sound good?" He got murmurs of agreement. Buffy decided to go to the shop with Giles and Anya. They all went their separate ways.  
  
3:00pm  
  
Amanda and Piper orbed into the Summer's living room after all of the Scoobys had assembled again. They stood in a corner for a second, not sure what to do. The first person to notice them was Xander. He looked in their direction and jumped about three feet. He yelped and pointed at them.  
  
Every head in the room turned to meet his gaze to the two women in the corner.  
  
"I told you that this was a bad idea, Amanda." The shorter, darker haired one said.  
  
"No you didn't." The tall, darker blonde one, Amanda, replied.  
  
"Well, I was thinkin' it!" Piper said bitterly. She froze the entire room and turned to Amanda. "Are you sure that this is a good idea?"  
  
"Combining your powers with those of the slayer is the only way we know of to heal Leo." Piper looked out to the room. Two of the women were moving, waving their hands in front of the others faces. The redheaded one turned to them, and grabbed a crossbow that was lying on the coffee table. The other one came to stand beside her.  
  
"What did you do to them?" 


	4. Chapter 4

"Whoa. Ok. No need to get violent." Piper said nervously, to the angry looking redhead.  
  
"We're not here to hurt you. We need your help. My name is Piper. I'm a witch. And so are you two, since you didn't freeze. Oh, and your friends are ok. They're just frozen in time. One wave, and they're back to normal."  
  
"What kind of help?" Tara spoke up softly from her place next to Willow. Piper sighed.  
  
"My husband was attacked by this demon/vampire thing. The only way to save him is to combine the powers of the Charmed Ones, that's my sisters and me, and the Slayer. So is she here?"  
  
Willow looked apprehensively at Piper as she told her story. 'But if she's evil and trying to kill us, she would know who Buffy is'. She rolled her thoughts over in her brain, and pointed to the tiny blonde.  
  
"That's the Slayer?" Amanda said uneasily, "But she's so tiny!"  
  
"Hey!" Willow remembered, "We haven't heard your story yet."  
  
"Oh yeah. Ok, well, I'll explain to all of you at once. So Piper, fix them, please." She complied, and the result was four extremely confused people. Willow and Tara calmed them down, and convinced Buffy not to kill their visitors.  
  
Piper once again explained their problem, and that they weren't, in fact, evil.  
  
"Will, maybe that's what got you last night." Xander was a lot more trusting than Buffy.  
  
"How do we know you're telling the truth?"  
  
"The Charmed Ones, as far as I know, are very much a reality. What did you say your power was, again?" Giles helped convince the rest of the Scoobys that Piper was a force of good.  
  
"Which begs the question: What are you?" That question was directed at Amanda.  
  
"Simply put, a guardian angel for witches. Whitelighter's the technical term. I did so much good in my natural lifetime, that I was selected to guide witches." The immediate following question was from Tara.  
  
"Why don't we have a whitelighter, then?"  
  
"Because you weren't strong enough. But the power coming off you two is incredible, so they're probably in the process of assigning you one. But back to business: Will you help us?"  
  
It took some convincing, but they agreed. Piper and Buffy made plans for her sisters to come stay at the Summer's house. They would fight this thing in Sunnydale. Amanda orbed Piper back to the Manor, where her sisters were waiting anxiously.  
  
"We did it. Now we just have to figure out how to kill it." Amanda went up to check up on Leo, and the sisters got ready for their stay in Sunnydale.  
  
"I don't trust them."  
  
"Buffy, we've been over this. Even done research. They're completely trustworthy. Don't worry about it, okay?"  
  
It had been a few hours since Piper and Amanda had come and gone. Buffy still didn't believe that they were legit. Willow was doing the best to persuade her best friend that things were all right, but she wasn't listening.  
  
"It's hard not to worry. How did they know where I lived? And how did she get enough power to just stop time like that?" The doorbell rang.  
  
"Well, you can ask her, because that's them." 


	5. Chapter 5

Check me out! The writer's block from the summer seems to have disappeared, and there's chapter 6 on the way.  
  
Again, huge, huge, really gigantic thanks to Darklight for pushing me to finish this.  
  
  
  
Willow opened the door to two familiar faces, and three unfamiliar. She welcomed them into the living room, where everyone had gathered. Buffy even let Dawn stay. After all, they were just fighting one little super demon. How serious could it get?  
  
The introductions went easily enough. Mostly.  
  
Phoebe could tell that there was a power struggle between her older sister and the slayer, Buffy, on the way. She seemed to click with the other two witches, Willow and Tara, almost immediately. The most interesting interaction by far was between Cole and Anya.  
  
"Anyanka?"  
  
"Balthazar?"  
  
They started talking quickly, about things neither group could understand. Phoebe asked about Anya, and they explained her ex-vengeance demon status. In return, Phoebe told them how they had turned Cole good. Finally, the two former demons explained how they had been old acquaintances. The group got back to business. Phoebe and Willow silently resolved to keep Prue and Buffy apart, for the greater good of all of them.  
  
Then the research began, full force.  
  
They stayed that way for a while, trading off books and computer time as needed. Before they knew it, it was 1 am, and Buffy was dying to patrol. And, much to her dismay, everyone wanted to come.  
  
"Buff, we're going stir crazy. All's we learned was that the demon's started killing more and more people. Let us out, please?" Xander begged.  
  
Buffy finally agreed to it, and split them off into groups:  
  
She, Piper, and Willow would go north,  
  
Prue, Giles, Spike, and Tara would head south,  
  
Cole, Anya, Phoebe, and Xander would start out east,  
  
And they would all meet back at the house around 2:30am and finish west in one large group. Amanda would stay back and watch Dawn until they met back up later, and then go out.  
  
  
  
Piper smiled grimly. "The faster we get this done, the faster we save my husband."  
  
Prue gave her sister's shoulder a squeeze as they headed out the door.  
  
Everything went easy. The north group only encountered two vampires, and the rest didn't even see one. They met back as scheduled, and headed out again, this time with Amanda.  
  
  
  
3:30 am  
  
It was cold. Not uncomfortably frigid, just enough so that you noticed. Phoebe glanced around her. She was at the front of the group, talking quietly with Buffy and Amanda. Prue and Giles took up the rear; discussing some old book that she had seen at Bucklands the year before. Piper was somewhere in between, listening to Willow. Cole and Anya were unquestionably friendly, and she could tell Xander had a problem with that.  
  
A sound up ahead interrupted Phoebe's thoughts on group dynamics. Then it came at them, before most of their crowd had even realized what was happening. Two from each side, one from the front, and one from the back.  
  
Buffy shot a glance behind her. "I thought there was only one!"  
  
"Well, guess we were wrong." Xander answered for everyone.  
  
Then the fight began, full force. 


	6. Chapter 6

*Just a little note-I just finished reading "The Lost Slayer" (It's good, if you haven't read it, you should) and I noticed how glaringly similar the Kachiquels are to my new special demon mix. It wasn't intentional, and I started writing this WAY before I even saw the book.*  
  
The first thing that registered in Phoebe's mind was how ugly these things were. Human shaped, but with a face she assumed belonged to a vampire. And there was something sinister in the way it held itself and the way it moved. Not like anything she had seen before.  
  
The fight was six against twelve, in their favor. Not the worst odds in the world, considering. But they were unprepared for how strong the demon/vampire mixes were, and how skilled they were in a fight. And how three more of them came out of nowhere as soon as the good guys noticed they were there.  
  
The first thing Prue did was order Amanda away. Under the circumstances, they couldn't risk having their whitelighter injured. She would return as soon as it was safe. Amanda didn't want to leave the fight, but she agreed that it made sense.  
  
Phoebe took on a solitary one to her left. She launched a spinning kick at its head, as it grabbed her ankle and slammed her down into the pavement of the street she had been standing on a second before. She fell hard, not getting up.  
  
Piper tried to blow up one that was attacking her fallen sister's body. It didn't do any damage, except for pissing it off. She cursed and shook her hands, as if to jump-start her powers. She tried it again, but the same thing happened. It came at her now, irritated and her multiple attempts to kill it. Now, she tried freezing it, but it only stayed frozen for a second. She had to start hand-to-hand, and that wasn't exactly Piper's area of expertise.  
  
"Damn it! What are these things?"  
  
"Beats me. But if you figure it out, let me know." Xander answered Piper's rhetorical question.  
  
Not far away, Buffy was holding her own against two. She staked one through the heart while knocking another off its feet with an impressive little kick Phoebe had showed her. It just looked at the wood point protruding from its chest with amusement. The vampire/demon took the stake out and tossed it away. Buffy paled visibly.  
  
"Pull back! They won't stake! It's too dangerous. Will, Tara, Charmed, Do a- "  
  
As Buffy shouted her assessment of the situation, which was becoming worse by the minute, she momentarily let her guard down. A vampire/demon noticed and kicked her painfully in the spine. The Slayer went down hard, and tried to get back up as a different one kicked her in the ribs.  
  
No one checked on Buffy during this whole fight, except to make sure she was still standing. They figured she was the strongest and would be the last to need help. When her announcement was abruptly cut off, Xander looked over in time to see her go down. He went to help, only to be knocked out of the way and into a nearby tree. He was out of the fight.  
  
Phoebe, Buffy, and Xander were down. Anya followed suit in a second. Prue held the vampires at bay with her powers as she figured out what their next move was. They were down a slayer, and a Charmed One. The odds weren't favoring them any more, and she didn't want to lose them all. Willow and Tara were still ok, and so was Piper. Prue didn't even count Cole in, but he was standing protectively over Phoebe.  
  
Prue called out all their names, and they turned to listen. "We have two choices-stay and get our collective asses kicked, and probably all die, or somehow get out of here. I don't know about you three, but I like door #2 a little better, and I'm started to get tired. So. Any ideas?"  
  
Piper had one.  
  
"What about Amanda? She can group-hug us out of here. Amanda!" She called their temporary Whitelighter's name experimentally. She appeared a few seconds later and surveyed the damage. Eight of the demon/vampire hybrids were circling around them, still being held back by Prue's telekinesis. Phoebe, Xander, Anya, and The Slayer were all lying unconscious on the ground. A small trickle of blood leaked out of the back of Xander's head, and at least three of Buffy's ribs were broken.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"We lost." Prue said shortly. "Can you get us all out of here and back to the Summer's house?"  
  
"In two trips, yes. But let me heal them first." Amanda healed Buffy first. The Slayer slowly sat up.  
  
"Did we win? Why aren't my ribs broken? Is everyone ok?" Amanda smiled at Buffy.  
  
"I healed you. Don't think about it to hard." Then the whitelighter moved over to heal Xander and Anya who were just as confused as Buffy. Phoebe wasn't quite as surprised.  
  
"Thanks. It's great that that works so well."  
  
Ok, now everybody's awake. Can we go? I can only hold this for a minute, at most." Prue asked. They could hear the exhaustion in her voice.  
  
Amanda took the Slayer's friends back first, and then came back for the Charmed Ones and the Slayer herself. Back at Buffy's house, they came up with a new plan.  
  
"When your Book says to combine our powers with the powers of the slayer, maybe that means you have to work together to kill each one. Wait. And why is there more than one, anyway?" Willow frowned. "And the extra evilys were almost as strong as the original. I don' like how this is going. It could make as many as it wants, and pretty soon.." She faded off.  
  
"We'd had a pretty nasty pest problem." Buffy finished. "We have to get them all, so they can't make any more. And I think I know who can help."  
  
"Who?" Xander asked. "Better not be Deadboy. Anyone but Deadboy."  
  
"Faith." 


	7. Chapter 7

The entire room was silent.  
  
They had arranged themselves around Buffy's living room, with small groups sitting together, trying to mix the Charmed and Scooby groups a little. Some side conversations had started, but the room was completely quiet now.  
  
"Ha ha, Buff. So it is Angel. I can deal. We worked together for 3 years, give or take, and we didn't try to kill each other. Well, there was that one- "  
  
"I wasn't joking, Xander. I'm calling Faith in." Buffy interrupted him.  
  
Everyone who didn't know Faith was confused.  
  
"Who's Faith?" Phoebe broke the silence that had again settled over the group.  
  
"The real slayer."  
  
"The what? But there's only one." Prue said, frowning.  
  
"Yeah, well, I died, got revived, and she got called."  
  
Buffy's explanation of the circumstances didn't help anyone to understand.  
  
"I don't care who she is. If she can stop these things, save my husband, and won't try and kill us all in the process, bring her here."  
  
Giles laughed nervously. "See, that's precisely the thing. She has a tendency, to, well, do just that. Try to kill us. On many occasions, actually. I don't think this is wise."  
  
Willow, surprisingly, was the one who defended Faith. "I've been talking to Cordelia on a regular basis, and she's told me that Faith's doing better each time. And don't ask me to tell you the latest on either Angel or Cordy." Willow stopped Buffy and Xander, who each had their mouths open, ready to ask. "Back to topic. How are we getting Faith out of jail?"  
  
"Jail? This doesn't sound like a very good idea. I say we fight with what we have, and leave the psycho out of the mix." Anya cut in with her customary take on things.  
  
"Well, we can't. This is the best idea we've come up with, and I say we use it." Xander jumped onboard the Faith train. (sorry, bad pun)  
  
"Are you sure she's not dangerous?"  
  
"We'll find out, now won't we?" Giles took his glasses off and wiped them on the corner of his shirt. "Willow? Call Cordelia, please, and see if you can get Faith out of jail for a few days. The rest of us will stay here and try and form some sort of plan." He continued to absently clean his glasses, as he thought about the dozens of ways this could go wrong.  
  
Willow went up to Buffy's room and picked up the phone on the side of her bed. She dialed the number at Angel Investigations from memory and waited until the familiar bright voice answered.  
  
"Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless."  
  
"Hey, Cordy. It's Willow."  
  
"Will! Hey! How's everything going?"  
  
"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. There's this new beastie in town, and we need the Slayer to fight it."  
  
"That's great, Willow, really. But in case you haven't noticed, you have one. Her name's Buffy. Last time I checked, you were pretty close friends. You don't have amnesia or anything, right?"  
  
Willow sighed. Even though Cordelia had grown out of the mean, shallow facade she had carried though high school, it still sometimes showed up in her tactless questions and evaluations. A lot like Anya, actually 'Xander really knows how to pick 'em.' Willow thought.  
  
"No, Cordy, I don't have amnesia, but Buffy's not 'The' Slayer. For all intents and purposes, she's just the Slayer back up. We need Faith here. Can you do anything to help us out?"  
  
The former cheerleader was silent for a minute. "I don't know. ANGEL! COME HERE!" Willow winced and held the phone away from her ear. She could hear Cordelia talking to Angel over the phone.  
  
"Can we break Faith out of jail? No, it's Willow. What kind of question is that? Fine. Willow? Angel wants to talk to you."  
  
"Willow?"  
  
"Hey Angel."  
  
"So what's this about breaking Faith out, because, as your plans go, not the best one I've heard."  
  
"Tell me about it. Readers Digest version? Big new bad. Need the slayer and the Charmed Ones. Got the Charmed ones, need a slayer."  
  
"But.Buffy?"  
  
Willow almost cried. This wasn't going anywhere.  
  
"Did everyone in LA suddenly get stupid? The way the PTB see it, Buffy's not the slayer anymore. In their eyes, if they even have eyes, Buffy died fighting the Master. So that makes Faith 'The Slayer.' And we need 'The Slayer.' Get it?"  
  
"Yeah. But did you say the Charmed Ones? Interesting."  
  
"That's what Giles thinks too. And that's fine, but we really need to get moving. There's a sort of time limit on this whole thing." Willow waited for Angel's response.  
  
"How long do you have?"  
  
"A couple days, maybe less."  
  
"I'll see what I can do. You at Buffy's house?"  
  
"Uh huh."  
  
"I'll call you when I get something."  
  
Willow entered the living room to an expectant group.  
  
"What did she say?" Piper was starting to get more than a little impatient.  
  
"They'll call back when they find something." 


	8. Chapter 8

Note: No Buffy or Charmed in this chapter-it's all Angel.  
  
"So. What was that all about?" Wesley walked into Angel's office, where Cordelia and Angel were talking and arguing.  
  
"Willow wants us to break Faith out of jail."  
  
"She never said-"  
  
"She might as well-"  
  
"Oh, come on, she-"  
  
"Children!" Wesley yelled. "Now what was that? Because I could have sworn you said 'Faith'. And breaking her out. And that can't be right."  
  
Angel more or less explained the situation in Sunnydale, with Cordelia's frequent interruptions.  
  
The ex-Watcher waited a minute before saying anything.  
  
"Well, it's quite obvious what we have to do, isn't it?"  
***********************************************  
  
"Her uncle?" The officer looked at Wesley suspiciously.  
  
"Yes. I'm sorry to say that he passed on Thursday, and we need her to speak at the funeral. They were very close."  
  
"Uh huh. And you are?"  
  
"Her cousin. And a lawyer. You'll see that all the paperwork is in order, and that we need her immediately. She'll only be gone for a few days."  
  
It took quite a bit of convincing, but they eventually let Faith out, on the grounds that her "cousin" would watch her carefully and that he would have her back in two days from then.  
  
She was startled to find Wesley standing impatiently outside, waiting for her.  
  
"You're my cousin?" She said, looking at him as if she could see in his face if he had lost it. "Last I checked, you wanted nothing to do with me."  
  
"Well, things change." He turned towards the guard. "Please remove her handcuffs so we can be off."  
  
Faith shook her head and got into the car.  
  
Wesley didn't even look at her for the length of their ride. Finally, when they were about halfway to Los Angeles, he filled her in on what was going on.  
  
"Ok." She said after he had told her what Willow had said. "But I don't get it. Did something happen to Buffy? Why do they need me? And what about these witches, The Charmed Ones? They can do all this without my help."  
  
"Apparently not. They need 'The Slayer', and whether you like it or not, you're her."  
  
"Whatever. I don't know what kind of welcome I'm gonna be getting in good old Sunnydale, but I have a feeling it's not first-rate."  
There are no words to describe the tension inside the Hyperion when Faith walked through the front doors. Wesley immediately retreated to Angel's office, and Angel told him that he would take her to Sunnydale. Angel could see in his face that another moment with her would make him snap.  
  
Angel walked calmly into the lobby, where Cordy and Faith were just looking at each other, daring the other to do something stupid.  
  
"I'll take you to Sunnydale. Do you have everything you need?"  
  
"Could deal to pick up a change of clothes. 'Prison' isn't exactly the style I'm goin' for."  
  
"Got it. We'll make a shopping stop, but then, it's Sunnydale bound."  
  
Faith thought of something and gently tugged on Angel's sleeve. "What about Buffy? I doubt you're jonesing to see her again."  
  
He just frowned. "I'll deal with that when we get there." 


	9. Chapter 9

Note: For the record, this has NOTHING to do with the current storyline on Angel. I thought of the Faith thing first (Or Darklight did), so they're the moochers, not me!  
  
Willow was sitting alone in the living room when the phone rang. Buffy and the others had gone out to get food, while the Halliwells and Cole went sightseeing around Sunnydale with Xander as a tour guide. She was thinking about the whole situation when the phone rang, disturbing her thoughts.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Willow, good. They left a few hours ago. I forgot to call, so they should be there any minute now. Sorry."  
  
"Cordelia?"  
  
"God, I said I was sorry. Want more do you want?"  
  
"How did you ever become a secretary?"  
  
"Good question. Still trying to figure that one out myself. Anyway, you should be keeping an eye out for Angel and Faith."  
  
"Wait. Angel's coming too?"  
  
"Yea. Things are going to get interesting up there. Hey, if Xander and Angel start fighting, do you think you could videotape it?"  
  
Willow shook her head, but agreed after she saw the mental image of an Angel/Xander catfight.  
  
They said their goodbyes and Willow went to look out the window. A car came down the street and she tensed, thinking she saw Angel and the more than slightly insane Slayer. But it went past the house without incident.  
  
She was standing in that position for a couple of minutes when another car, this time a black convertible, pulled into the driveway.  
  
"Oh, this is going to be fun." She said under her breath. "Showtime." Willow went to open the front door.  
  
*********************************************  
  
Buffy and the others came barreling through the door, with the Halliwell sisters on their heels. They had gotten home about the same time, and they had brought food. Buffy entered the kitchen first, and saw Willow pouring tea for Angel and Faith. She stood speechless in the doorway for a moment, before she realized what she was seeing.  
  
"Oh. Hi. Angel, Faith. Why are you in my house?"  
  
"Willow called. You ok, B?" Faith caught herself. "Jeez, Sorry about that. You don't like me, I gotta remember that. So. Down to business, right? What's the newest?"  
  
Buffy just stared. Everything was surreal, almost comical. Her ex and an evil evil-fighter were drinking tea at her kitchen table. Amanda chose that moment to orb into the kitchen, right in front of where Faith was sitting. The other Slayer yelled and jumped up, while everyone else didn't even blink. That really didn't help the surreal-ness.  
  
Angel looked puzzled. "You have a whitelighter? Hm. Did you come with the Charmed Ones?"  
  
Amanda nodded. She was confused, but she didn't dwell on it. There were more important things going on than the impossibly cute.. vampire. Whatever.  
  
"What's a whitelighter? Is she evil?" Faith fell into a battle stance.  
  
Phoebe snorted from behind Buffy.  
  
"What?" Faith asked, turning towards her. "What's so funny? And who are YOU?"  
  
Buffy smirked. She loved when her enemies got all confused and upset. She turned to see what the whitelighter would say. But Amanda wasn't even smiling.  
  
Everyone crowded into the kitchen. Piper gave her explanation of the events that had led them to gather into a kitchen in Sunnydale. Now their group had grown from her and her sisters, to a whitelighter, to the Slayer and her 'Slayerettes,' to an ensouled vampire and another Slayer. And they were all there to save her husband. Ok, maybe they wanted to help out the world too. But still.  
  
Next, Piper consulted Amanda. "So? What's going on up there? Has he gotten any better?"  
  
"Good news is, that the girl, Jessi, and her mother, have made a full recovery. Bad news, Leo's gotten worse. Piper, we don't have much time."  
  
"Ballpark figure?"  
  
"12 hours."  
  
Faith had pretty much figured out the situation, at least to the point where she could start giving orders.  
  
"So. We have less than 12 hours to save witchy's husband. I say we go kick some ass."  
  
"It's not that simple." Cole spoke up. "Our asses were the ones getting kicked last time. We need a better plan."  
  
"Hey. This might work." Tara had been absent from the conversation until now. She walked past the group into the center of the kitchen and set the Book of Shadows down on the island.  
  
"If we combine your powers with Buffy's and Faith's, literally, we could be able to make this work."  
  
Everyone crowded around her as they formed a plan. Piper hung in back, the news still hitting her hard. She didn't know what she would do if they couldn't save Leo. 


	10. Chapter 10

Research had started full force-Cole, Tara, Prue, Giles, and Angel were researching methods of destroying their new big bad, which seemed to be getting to be a bigger problem every minute. Buffy went out with Phoebe, and Faith to patrol. Buffy didn't want Faith to go with them, but she figured it was safer than leaving her in the house with her friends. The remaining members of the group tried to be useful. Mostly, that entitled staying out of the way. Willow was on the computer while simultaneously giving Piper the Buffy/Angel story. So far, she had gotten up to Graduation.  
  
"No way." Phoebe exclaimed in disbelief.  
  
Willow nodded. "Yes way. Buffy almost died. She was in a coma, but she got better"  
  
"Wow. You're like, what, 21?"  
  
"The life of a Scooby isn't an easy one." Willow said, thinking back to Oz and that whole drama-rama.  
  
"So, come on! I want to know what happens after that."  
  
"Oh, ok. We filled the school with explosives and Buffy led the snake-mayor into the school, while the students fought his vampire minion people."  
  
"They all did?"  
  
"Every single one. We gave them all weapons. A lot died, though. And then Angel moved away to LA so they wouldn't have to see each other. It was so sad. But she still manages to see him, and when they do, they fight a lot and stuff. It's not like he even left sometimes."  
  
Willow continued to fill her in on their.interesting lives. Piper's mind was momentarily off Leo, which was Willow's objective the entire conversation. They older witch was so nice to everyone (except for that guy, Cole.), even when her life was spinning out of control. To keep the talk off her dying husband, Willow asked why she didn't like Cole.  
  
Piper laughed. "Long or short version?"  
  
"Long please!"  
  
Piper sighed. "Ok, but I warned you." She started the story of the Phoebe/Cole Theatre. Willow interrupted her about half way through.  
  
"Wait a second. That sounds a lot like Buffy and Angel. Evil, Good, loves the person who should be killing him, goes evil, then good again, then leaves for a while,." She trailed off.  
  
"Wow. You're right, Willow. That's so bizarre. I wonder if anything else is similar?" They both started describing different aspects of their lives, thankful to have something interesting to do.  
  
***********************************  
  
Faith, Phoebe, and Buffy were walking aimlessly one of the countless cemeteries in Sunnydale. The tension and anger between the two slayers was unbelievable, at least to Phoebe. She figured there was a story behind all that unspent rage, but she was afraid if she asked they would start with the fisticuffs, and they couldn't afford to have two beat-up slayers. So instead, she suggested they split up to cover more ground.  
  
"We'd get more done in a shorter amount of time, and then you two wouldn't want to beat each other up so badly. So if we spread out over this cemetery, we could avoid that."  
  
"I don't know. Is that safe? From what B's said, this dude's super-strong."  
  
"We're all perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves." To display that, Phoebe jumped up in the air and levitated several feet above the ground.  
  
"Whoa! Cool!" Faith's eyes' widened considerably.  
  
"And if we get into trouble, shout. If you get hurt, call for Amanda. She's just hanging out with Leo up there, so she can come down and heal us." Phoebe finished her explanation of her plan by lowering herself gently down to the ground again.  
  
"Ok. Meet by the entrance in 15. Faith, go North. Phoebe? West. I have south and east." Buffy ended the conversation by spinning on her heel and leaving. As she walked away, she could hear Faith ask Phoebe, "Yea, about her. What's the deal with the blue-glowy shit she can do? It's creepy."  
Buffy was drifting through her section of the graveyard, her mind on Angel. Of course, her mind was almost always on him, but this was different. More intense and focused. She never realized how much she missed him until he was that close to her. When she could see the hurt in his eyes, feel the pain coming off him in waves. She hadn't thought that the three super- witches would screw with her life that much, and to have Faith and Angel here at once was overloading her emotionally. And it didn't help that she was trying to save someone from imminent death either.  
  
Her thoughts were suddenly cut short. She hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings. Two demonvamps had sneaked up behind her. One grabbed her ponytail and smashed her head into the pavement that had been under her feet the second before. She was momentarily stunned, and then it did it again. And again. She felt her head smash into the concrete one more time, and her last thought before she passed out was if they were going to turn her or kill her right away, and if Angel would cry if she died. 


	11. Chapter 11

Buffy's head hurt. Really, really hurt. She didn't want to open her eyes, because her headache was bad enough already and she heard that light made them worse. She couldn't remember what had happened and why she was.wherever she was. Buffy suddenly felt a hand tightly holding hers. It was cold, at least for a hand. Then a voice broke through the fog in her head.  
  
"I can't believe this happened."  
  
Angel. It could only be him.  
  
He continued to talk, but she only half listened. Buffy was trying to decide whether or not to let him know she was awake. She made the decision not to. She just wanted to listen to his voice for a while.  
  
"When you came to LA?" She started listening to Angel again, but found that she had missed half of his sentence.  
  
He laughed grimly. "Of course you don't." His voice softened again. "That's why you have to know. If not now, then when?" He sucked in his breath. Buffy had no idea what he was saying. Then he started talking again.  
  
"Ok, so, that day when we were in my office and that demon came through the window and I knew how to kill it? That wasn't good luck. That day had already happened already. The first time around, we didn't kill it right away. It got out, and we chased it down into the sewers. You went aboveground to try and track it, but since it was day, I had to stay down in the tunnels. Turns out, it was down with me all along. So we fought, and I killed it. But not before some of his blood got mixed with mine. The Mohra demon's blood has regenerative properties, at least according to Doyle. It turned me human, Buffy."  
  
Now she was certain he had lost it.  
  
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Angel had been human, and she didn't remember! It was impossible. Maybe it was that concussion she was almost certain she had. But Buffy couldn't help listening to the rest of his tale.  
  
"I went to the Oracles, and they told me that I was no longer a warrior and that I had been released. And then, well, you were there. And so was I. In the sunlight. Then I kissed you. And after that we went back to my apartment and everything was right, the way things are supposed to be. Something you said summed up most of that night-you said you 'felt like a normal girl, falling asleep in the arms of her normal boyfriend.' That's when I realized, we could make this work. That's also when all hell broke loose. The Morha was regenerating itself, not just me. So when you were sleeping Doyle and I went to fight it. Almost killed us too, but Cordy told you where we were. You showed up and destroyed it."  
  
He paused. "From then on, I knew it could never be. You'd always be saving my ass, and I wouldn't be able to stand putting you in constant danger. So I told the Oracles to turn back the day, as if it never happened. Everyone would forget-everyone except me. It worked. And now it doesn't matter because you're never going to wake up anyway."  
  
What he didn't know was that Buffy had been listening to his confession the whole time. She couldn't control the tears that fell down her face, as she understood what they had had, even if it was only for a day.  
  
When Angel saw that she was crying, he jumped out of his chair. Then, knowing that she was awake, he sat back down and starting stroking her hair.  
  
"You bastard."  
  
Her voice came out dry and scratchy, but he could hear the pain in her words.  
  
"You kept this from me? How could you?" She tried to open her eyes, but the light in the hospital room was too harsh.  
  
"We'll talk about this later. You need a doctor." Angel ran out of the room looking for one.  
  
~The Summer's House~  
  
Willow walked back into the living room where everyone was assembled. The phone had rung and she went into the kitchen to answer it.  
  
"That was Angel. She's awake."  
  
Willow turned to Phoebe. "It's not your fault."  
  
"Right. I was the one who suggested we split up. That pretty much makes it my fault."  
  
Xander spoke up for the older witch. "Yeah, but you didn't know what was gonna happen. You thought you all could handle yourselves. Which is an pretty good deduction."  
  
"Don't beat yourself up about it. B's awake now, so everything's cool again." Everyone echoed Faith's statement. Not including Dawn, who had disappeared to her room before Angel had called with the good news.  
  
"What should we do now?" Piper asked. She was getting anxious with all the sitting around. They only had 6 hours to save Leo, and nobody had been able to come up with any ideas.  
  
"It's obvious. We need to kill the bad guy and save the day."  
  
"Yes, Anya, very good. But how do we do that exactly?" Piper snapped.  
  
Amanda chose that moment to orb into the hallway outside of the Summer's living room. Cole saw her first and went out to talk to her. When he got closer, he noticed tears were steadily falling down her face.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
She shook her head. "He died. Leo died. Again."  
  
Cole looked stricken. "What are we going to tell Piper?"  
  
"Tell Piper what?" The witch in question had maneuvered behind Cole and caught the last part of their conversation. When she saw the look on Amanda's face, Piper feared the worst.  
  
"Is he getting worse?"  
  
"Piper, we lost him." The Whitelighter's tears continued to fall in a steady stream, which were now joined by Piper's.  
  
"No. No. No!" Piper ran out of the house, leaving everyone else behind. Prue moved to follow her, but Amanda held her back.  
  
"Let her go." Then she realized that they didn't know what had happened. She moved into the living room and told the crowd her grim news.  
  
Faith summed up the situation the way she usually did. "Shit. We are so screwed." 


	12. Chapter 12

Phoebe sat on the couch sobbing. Cole moved over to her and held her, trying in vain to comfort her. One tear fell from Prue's eye, and then she was back to business. The Scoobys understood what had happened, even though they had never known Leo. Dawn came slowly down the stairs, drawn out by Piper's cry.  
  
"What happened? Is everyone ok?"  
  
Xander walked over to Buffy's little sister and wrapped her in a hug.  
  
"Hey. It's awfully sullen in here. Somebody die or what?" Spike, who had been absent from the events for a while, entered the house. Willow shook her head, and he instantly regretted his words. "Poof! What in the blazes are you doing here?" Now the bleached-blond vampire addressed Angel.  
  
"Helping, unlike you. Either shut up and lend a hand or get out." Spike plopped down on an overstuffed chair.  
  
They stayed like that for twenty minutes, almost no one moving or speaking. Giles was flipping through the Book of Shadows. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but it was something to keep busy. The book started turning pages on it's own, settling on one that read,  
  
To Call A Lost Witch  
  
Power of the witches rise, course unseen across the skies  
  
Come to us, we call you near  
  
Come to us and settle here  
  
Blood to blood, I summon thee  
  
Blood to blood, return to me.  
  
Giles dismissed it and continued looking through the book. It did it again, opening on the page about calling a witch.  
  
"Ok, fine, have it your way. Miss Halliwell, would you come here please?" Prue moved to stand next to Giles.  
  
"What's up?"  
  
"Your book seems to want you to do this ritual."  
  
" 'To Call a Lost Witch?' Are you sure Grams?"  
  
Giles was confused. "Who's Grams?"  
  
"Our dead grandmother. Don't worry about it. Willow, Tara, do you have any of these things?" The two younger witches went and gathered the needed ingredients. Prue settled herself at the coffee table and did the spell as the book entailed. She sliced her finger and let it drip into the bowl Tara had set in front of her. Faith watched the ceremony in bored fascination, as a faint gust of wind blew through the room.  
  
A bright blue light glowed out of the ceiling, covering Faith, Phoebe, and Prue. Faith cursed and jumped up as the room began to shake and the wind blew stronger.  
  
"What the hell's going on?" Faith yelled at Amanda over the wind, who was standing with her hand over her mouth.  
  
"No way."  
  
"No way what? What's happening?"  
  
"I'm not completely sure, but it looks like...did you know your birth parents, Faith?" 


	13. Chapter 13

"No, I was adopted. Why is my life suddenly your businesss?"  
  
Amanda dismissed Faiths' question. "I need...to find some things out. If I'm right, then you'll have some new sisters before the day is over." The whitelighter orbed out.  
  
"Sisters? What the hell is she trying to tell me? Why would I get sisters?"  
  
Willow made some strangled noises and started jumping up and down.  
  
"Will? Are you ok?" Xander grabbed her arm, but she shrugged it off.  
  
"I think I read something somewhere-Giles, where's that one book of prophecies? Letkos, I think?"  
  
The watcher found the 600-year-old book hidden under piles of Xander's junk food. Willow unceremoniously snatched the volume out of his grasp and flipped through the pages frantically. Finally, she screamed.  
  
"Here!"  
  
Everyone in the room crowded around her to read what she was so excited about.  
  
A newfound witch will come to inherit her powers in the midst of a great tragedy, making the three four. She will not know until she is tested and has redeemed herself against great crimes committed by her....  
  
And the passage continued, basically describing Faith. Phoebe covered her mouth in shock and pointed to the Slayer.  
  
"You're our sister? How can that be?"  
  
"Wait a sec. I'm no one's sister."  
  
"You have her eyes."  
  
Everyone now turned to look at the person speaking. Piper was standing in the doorway. Her face was tearstained, made worse by the mascara that had run.  
  
Her sisters were on her in an instant, hugging her strongly.  
  
She shook her sisters off her.  
  
"Not now. I can't deal, ok? Lets save the world, and then I can mourn."  
  
Prue shook her head. This wasn't the way her sister wanted it, she knew that Piper wanted to cry her eyes out and then go kill whatever murdered Leo. But she was being brave, and Prue didn't want to hurt her sister, so she didn't say anything.  
  
"Hey, here's a thought. Your beastie can only get killed by combining the slayer-those two ladies over there-, and the Charmed Ones-those 3 or 4, whichever. I'm not too clear on the details, but what's the common denominator here? Faith. It seems that she's a slayer AND a Charmed One." Spike let Dawn finish his thought.  
  
"Oh my God! Faith's the only thing that can stop the demon/vamps. Cuz, ya'know, she's a combination of the Slayer and the Charmed Ones, and that's what we need. Right?"  
  
"Right. Very good, Bit." Spike praised her. "Now Slayer #2 here just has to go out and kill her some beasties."  
  
"And you said this wasn't gonna be fun." Faith had no idea how she was going to deal with the fact that she now had sisters, but now at least she could go kick some ass and not think about it.  
  
"Point me at 'em." 


	14. Chapter 14

"Faith, don't be stupid. We're coming with you." Giles opened the weapon's chest and starting handing out axes, swords, and crossbows from Buffy's personal collection.  
  
"Na uh uh, Giles. My gig, remember?"  
  
"Don't 'na uh uh' me, young lady. We are coming with you; and that's final."  
  
Faith looked surprised as everyone in the room went up to Giles to get their weapons without discussion. Phoebe quietly pulled Faith aside.  
  
"I know you're freaked out about all this, but we'll figure everything out."  
  
"Why'd you think I was freaked?"  
  
"You look like a deer in headlights."  
  
"No, I don't."  
  
"Yes, you do. See? We even fight like sisters."  
  
Faith was utterly unprepared for that. She shrugged and picked up her short sword, and put stakes in her pockets.  
  
Angel quietly slipped out the door.  
  
"Where the hell is he going?" Faith snapped.  
  
"To get Buffy. He'll be back in a few minutes. We can wait until then." Giles said. He sat down and waited.  
  
As soon as they got back, Faith walked out the door and called over her shoulder, "Come on already! If you want to play follow the leader, then fine. But keep up."  
  
Buffy ran to catch up with her.  
  
"You ok?"  
  
"When have you ever cared about that? First good ol' Wesley breaks me out of jail, more or less. Then Angel brings me here to help you fight evil. Then I find out I have sisters, and now you're asking if I'm ok. Which, by the way, is the weirdest of them all. Jail was more fun. And less confusing."  
  
"You forgot about the part that you probably have magical powers, like Prue, Piper, and Phoebe."  
  
"Oh god." Faith moaned. "I can't deal with all this. Too, too much. Slayer- brain overload."  
  
Buffy laughed. "Yea? Well how do you think I feel? My ex-vampire-boyfriend shows up in town without any warning. Fun times for me, too."  
  
Buffy realized that she was having a civilized conversation with Faith. One more thing to add to the string of strange occurrences. She turned to see what everyone else was doing. Piper was towards the back with her sister, Prue. She was walking slowly, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. Phoebe had her arm wrapped over Piper's shoulders, and was talking softly to her. Faith followed Buffy's look and nodded.  
  
"I can't imagine. Well, I sort of can. This is horrible for her. At least when I killed Angel we weren't, like, married. But they..." Buffy broke off.  
  
"I know. Life sucks sometimes. Most of the time, actually. But look on the bright side-now we go 'avenge' his death. Can a dead guy 'die', or is it something else?"  
  
"No, Whitelighters can die. We're just a lot harder to kill." Amanda came up beside the Slayers and started walking with them.  
  
"Yea. That poison stuff, right?"  
  
"Right. Hurt's like hell, too."  
  
Faith and Buffy stopped in their tracks.  
  
"You got that poison in you and you're still here?" Faith asked.  
  
Amanda grimaced. "Not a fun story. Trust me."  
  
Buffy stared at her. "You're joking, right?"  
  
"I wish." The Whitelighter shuddered at the memory.  
  
Amanda dropped back to talk to Willow and Tara about the protection spell they were going to cast. Hopefully it would work better than the first time. s 


	15. Chapter 15

Faith idly twirled her sword handle around in her hands, looking for anything that even remotely resembled evil. They had been out for two hours, and she hadn't had anything to kill.  
  
"Amanda? Got anything yet?"  
  
The Whitelighter shook her head. "No. And for the last time, I can't sense evil, just my charges."  
  
"Yea, but you could try.never mind."  
  
Xander covered his mouth to keep from laughing. Faith was itching for something to beat the crap out of, and now she was even annoying the angel. Faith wasn't the only one fidgeting, though. Buffy and Phoebe were rocking back and forth on their heels, trying not to look overly nervous. And he was bored too. Nothing was happening. And while in some instances that would be a good thing, he just wanted to kill the bad guy, go home, and sleep for about a week and a half.  
  
"Will, tell me I'm wrong, but those thingies up ahead...." Buffy let her best friend finish her sentence.  
  
"...Look like the super-vamps. Faith." Willow said softly. The other slayer looked up at them and nodding, letting them know she saw the demon/vamps too. By now, everyone else had. Piper looked sick, and Prue had her arm wrapped firmly around her little sister's shoulders. Faith, who was now at the head of the line, started to slowly walk backwards so she could speak to everyone behind her.  
  
"Ok, listen up. I want all Wicca's in the back-you guys can't get hurt. Amanda, Xander, and Anya, you guys protect them. B, Cole, Giles, Spike, Angel, you guys are fightin' with me. Any questions? Good. Now lets do it." She spun around and ran at the demons.  
  
There were 15 demon/vamps in front of Faith. She focused on the first one, flying towards it and cleanly chopping it's head off.  
  
"Damn, B, you said this was gonna be hard!"  
  
"Yes, well, you're the one with the extra super-powers. I'm just a Slayer. Little harder for me." Buffy said, who had come up next to fight alongside Faith. Angel was next to Buffy, and Spike next to him. Giles was on her other side, standing next to Cole.  
  
Behind them, Willow, Tara, and the sisters were performing a spell to enchant the weapons everyone had brought, so people other than Faith could kill them..  
  
Phoebe watched as the designated fighters did their thing, throwing punches and kicks, but *getting * punched and kicked for their trouble. Faith had killed only the one so far, and she was getting fairly beat up.  
  
Two of the monsters got through the first line, and were now attacking Amanda and Anya. Xander had gone up to help out on the front lines, seeing as how they were losing. d Anya started swinging her axe wildly around, hoping to hit one of them. She got the hybrid in its chest, but it didn't kill him. Just pissed it off.  
  
All the weapons, from stakes to Angel's favorite broadsword, started to glow.  
  
"Ok, you guys should be able to kill stuff now!" Prue yelled and picked up her own sword, jumping into the fray at the head of the line.  
  
"Yea!" Spike shouted, as he slammed a stake into one's heart. "That's more like it!"  
  
Faith and Buffy were also having a bit more luck than before. Between them, they had killed four.  
  
"Buffy? Why aren't they doing that fire-throwing thing?" Xander called over worriedly.  
  
"I don't know! Just be glad that they're not!"  
  
That was their cue. When their numbers had dwindled to eight, the demon/vamps started hurling the fire. The Scoobys and everyone did a decent job of dodging them. One got the edge of Angel's arm, and Prue almost got hit. She deflected it, though, and sent it back to the demon that threw it at her.  
  
Smaller battles were raging around them. Four more demon/vamps had appeared out of nowhere, and the whole scene was chaotic.  
  
"This isn't going to end well." Tara whispered. 


	16. Chapter 16

"Tara, get down!" She heard someone shout. Tara ducked just in time to avoid being hit. She jumped back up and found herself next to Angel.  
  
"Thanks." She said softly, while evading attacks from next to her.  
  
"Don't mention it." He said, jumping over a demon/vamp and landing on it's other side. He slammed his broadsword through its neck, severing the head.  
  
"Does anyone else get the feeling that this is pointless?"  
  
"Shut up, Cole!" Prue and Faith said at the same time.  
  
But it really was. Before Phoebe's eyes, one came up behind Anya and smashed her on top the head. She crumpled to the ground and didn't move.  
  
"Anya!" Xander ran over to her, but before he got there, he too was taken out of the fight. This time, with a swift kick to the side of his head.  
  
Buffy watched in horror as her friends started to fall. The witches stood in a circle in the center of the fight, trying to destroy ones with magicks and the occasional flick of Prue's finger. Faith and Spike were also doing ok, fighting back-to back. She and Angel were standing next to each other, warding off attacks from both sides, like they used too. But before her eyes, Cole, followed swiftly by Giles, fell.  
  
"Amanda! Where the hell are you?" Buffy swung her head around, trying to see where the Whitelighter had gone. And then, she spotted her. "Oh, God."  
  
The angel was sitting on the ground, holding her stomach. Buffy didn't even need to see what was under her hands. She had been hit. Phoebe followed her line of vision and raced over to her temporary Whitelighter. Amanda smacked Phoebe's hands away.  
  
"Don't worry about me, I'm already dead. But you need to defeat these abominations."  
  
Phoebe shook her head. "What do we do?"  
  
"You're handy with writing spells, aren't you?"  
  
Phoebe nodded her head.  
  
"Ok, that's something. Write one to...um, I don't know, tie your powers together with Willow and Tara's, making a Power of 6.  
  
"Double the Wiccas, double your fun." Phoebe muttered. "Got it. But what if it doesn't work?"  
  
"Then I guess we're screwed. But no pressure." Amanda smiled thinly. "Just make sure it works, ok?"  
  
Phoebe nodded and ran back to her sisters and the other witches. "We need to write us a spell."  
  
"Wait." Willow said, while sending the business end of a skate into the heart of a demon/vamp that had gotten a hold of Tara. "Isn't this sort of a job for Faith? I mean, she's the one the prophecy talked about, not us."  
  
Prue nodded. "Willow's not wrong. Something's off."  
  
"What?" Piper asked, not following the shift in her sister's thoughts.  
  
"There numbers aren't going down. We kill them and they just keep coming. Only the one's that Faith kills stay dead. Even with our new and improved weapons, we can't defeat them. Faith's the key. "  
  
"Yea. Sis. Get. To. The. Point." Piper snapped. Each word was accented with a kick to a demon/vamp. She finally pushed a stake through it's chest, turning the creature to dust. She honestly didn't care if it would just pop back up somewhere else in the fight. But each one she killed could be the one who murdered her husband, and she liked that feeling.  
  
"That's all I had." Prue said.  
  
Tara's hands whipped around in the air in front of her, forming symbols. She mouthed words, and suddenly, small fields of protection formed around Cole, Giles, Xander, Anya, and the now unconscious Amanda. It looked like one hybrid had been about to bite Giles, and they didn't want that.  
  
The demon/vamps numbers had dwindled to 10, but it wasn't looking good for everyone else. Buffy, Spike, Angel, and Faith were holding their own, but it was obvious that the witches were getting tired. Buffy seemed to have reached the same conclusion as Prue had, which was evident by the colorful string of words she employed.  
  
"Slayer!" Spike teased. "Didn't know you knew such language!"  
  
Angel let loose a few phrases of his own, and Spike shut up. Buffy looked over at him and grinned.  
  
"Buffy! Watch out!" Faith called. She spun around, only to be attacked from both sides by two demon/vamps.  
  
"Ya know, I *really* don't like you guys. And beating up my friends? Really not raising my opinion of you. Now, if you could just kindly go kill yourselves.Ok, so I'm an optimist."  
  
Angel suppressed a laugh. He really missed the way Buffy taunted and mocked her enemies. Once the monsters realized that the Scoobys and Friends couldn't kill them, at least not permanently, they had stopped using the fireballs. Angel figured it drained their energy or something. He turned his head as Buffy cried out in pain. One of them had landed a kick, and he heard bones in her hand snap. His features, which had stayed human through the battle, morphed into those of a vampire.  
  
Phoebe made a mental note never to get on his bad side. 


	17. Chapter 17

"You hurt her." Angel said. His words were slightly distorted by his fangs, but he got the message across.  
  
Prue watched in fascination as Angel viciously attacked it, beating its face to a bloody pulp and then finally putting it out of its misery with a stake. Buffy stood to the side, cradling her ruined hand. The witch watched her smile a little, as if the brutal display was sweet. She didn't see anymore, however. Prue fell to the ground before she even knew what hit her. It had been a demon/vamp; coming up from behind with a sword it had taken from the fallen Giles.  
  
Faith saw her new sister fall, and she cursed. Everyone was being beaten, and there were still 8 d/v's, as she was referring to them, to defeat. The only good guys left standing were her, Spike, Angel, Piper, and Phoebe. She wasn't counting Buffy, who was desperately trying to stay in the fight with her useless hand. Angel was, of course, right next to her, beating away the baddies. Willow had been taken out right before Prue, and Tara had also. Now, the ones who were out of the fight didn't have any protection, and that was what Phoebe was currently working on-keeping them from snacking on her newfound friends and her family.  
  
"B, this isn't working!" She screamed.  
  
Somehow, they had spread out. The fight had started in a small square in the entrance to the Sunnydale Park, and now they flooded the grassy area inside. It wasn't that large of a place, but it was dangerous to let the demon/vamps isolate them. Spike was juggling two, and Faith was working on 1. Angel had his hands full protecting him and Buffy from 3, and the witches had two. If Faith couldn't speed it up and start killing them, the fight would be finished.  
  
"No shit, Sherlock!" Phoebe yelled over to the Slayer. It hadn't seemed like that much, 10 demons to 14 good guys. But they had underestimated them, and they had paid the price. In spades.  
  
"Faith! We need to get them to you to kill." Piper said. She was doing well, holding back her demon/vamp with her sword. Even killed a couple, but in this fight, that didn't exactly count for much.  
  
"Yea, I got that." She yelled back. "But how?"  
  
"We've been over this! We don't know!" Buffy called over. She and Angel were the farthest from the rest of their group, almost across the park. But that wasn't stopping Buffy from entering in her opinions. As usual.  
  
They were all at a loss. They had entered into a losing battle, and now they didn't know what to do, and if any of their friends were even still alive. Amanda wasn't looking good, and Phoebe didn't know if Tara was breathing. 


	18. Chapter 18

Finally, it sunk in that one of Faith's newfound sisters was injured, and she lost it. The Slayer stood in the center of the clearing, the bodies of her friends (or non-enemies. The Scoobs weren't exactly her *friends*) strewn across the park. She screamed and threw her head back. Bright green sparks emanated from her fingers, reaching the demon/vamps closest to her. The tendrils of magic wrapped around them, and they started to scream. It wasn't like anything any of them had heard before-a high-pitched wailing that Faith swore was about to blow apart her eardrums.  
  
"Now, now, none of that." Spike bellowed over the noise. He killed one with his stake, but was also zapped by Faith's magicks.  
  
"Holy hell, Slayer! That hurts!"  
  
"I don't know how to stop it!" She yelled. Faith was obviously panicking, and she didn't know what to do.  
  
"I think you're hurting them!" Phoebe screamed hopefully.  
  
"Yeah, and they're hurting us too." Her sister said into her ear. "We need to figure this all out. And-"  
  
Before Piper even could finish her sentence, a shockwave blew them all over. Phoebe realized as she hit the ground that it was coming from Faith.  
  
"Damn." She said as she fell into unconsciousness.  
  
The same thing was happening to everyone who had been standing. Except for Faith and the demon/vamps, everyone was knocked out. Then the supernatural tremor spread, knocking down trees and the gate at the entrance to the park.  
  
"Hell yea!" She screamed. One of the trees came dangerously close to hitting Xander, and she tried to tone it down a bit, but she couldn't do it. It was like the magick was controlling her, teaching her what to do. So Faith let it.  
  
As if it had a mind of it's own, the magick tightened it's hold on the demon/vamps and actually crushed them, severing heads and turning them to dust. She thought she was finished when the magick loosened it's grip and went *inside* Faith, like it had been there. She felt like she had been awake for a month, and she was so tired she dropped to the ground where she was standing. But it wasn't nearly finished.  
  
The ashes from the demon/vamps flew into the air, converging into one large shape. A new, bigger demon/vamp. The first one.  
  
"Aw, come on now. You gotta be shittin' me." Faith slowly pulled herself to her feet and willed the magick from just a few moments ago to come back and kill this thing.  
  
But nothing happened. 


	19. Chapter 19

"Oh no, no, come on!" She waved her arms around, trying to get the magick to work. But then she had a better idea.  
  
"Ok then. We'll rumble." She looked around for something to use as a weapon, and she took the axe that had been resting in Spike's hands. Then Faith did what she does best-slay.  
  
It fought well, but not quite well enough. She got the axe's blade through its neck. Almost. The demon/vamp made a noise which she guessed was a laugh, and it pulled the blade out, tossing the Slayer along with it. She landed with a thud twenty feet away. Faith got back up and tried to figure out how to get her powers to work. The prophecy/book thingy had mentioned something about having to combine the powers of the Charmed Ones and the Slayer. They had assumed that Faith was just that, and that was all. But there was another piece to the puzzle. She snapped her fingers as she figured it out. She had to use both of her powers to destroy the final Big Bad.  
  
'Great. I got that part. Now how do I do it?' She thought, at a loss. 'How did I get it to do it's thing first? Saw my new big sis out cold. Got pissed, and then I.'  
  
"I got it!" She thought about things that made her unbelievably angry. Never knowing her parents, being shipped from one foster home to the next, Kakistos killing her first watcher, the mayor dying, and now the thought of her losing the only family she would ever have...and it worked. The green tendrils came back out of her fingertips, but instead of killing the bad guy, it worked itself into her weapon, turning it a clear, radiant green.  
  
"Whoa, sweet!" Without another thought, she stepped up to the demon/vamp and held her axe up, which it regarded with renewed fear. They traded blows for what felt like an eternity, until she finally saw an opening. Faith took it and tried to kill it again. This time it actually worked, turning the monster into a small pile of ash. She stood there, not knowing what to do. But she didn't have to wait long. From the ruins that were once the park entry, a woman stepped out. She was glowing, and not in the happy way. Light spilled off her, and she walked gracefully towards Faith. When the woman was fairly close, she held out her hand.  
  
"Faith. You're so beautiful."  
  
"Uh, thanks lady. Who are you?" Faith took a cautious step back.  
  
"I keep forgetting you've never met me. I've watched over you your entire life. You think getting out of that coma was your super-Slayer healing? No, sweetie, it was your mother, putting in a favor."  
  
"No... they said that my mother was dead."  
  
"I know, honey. But I can come down here every once in a while. I've already guided the rest of my daughters in their times of greatest need, and now it's your turn."  
  
"I don't understand." The Slayer whispered, tears flowing freely down her face. "Are you really my mother?"  
  
"Yes, honey, I am. And now you need to make a choice. We don't have much time."  
  
Faith nodded, not completely sure what was going on around her. "What do I have to do?"  
  
"Your future could take two different paths. You have to understand that the Powers That Be never expected for any of this to happen. A fourth Charmed One, a second Slayer. You're special. Your destiny is up to you, and whichever selection you make will alter, well, everything about what's to come. One: you could go back to jail in Los Angeles and serve the rest of your sentence. Two: Go to San Francisco with Prue, Piper, and Phoebe, using your new position as Charmed One to fight the good fight."  
  
"I want to go with them." She said quietly. "I've never had family, and I want to know what it's like."  
  
Now it was the ghost's turn to start crying. "Faith, I know. But I couldn't do anything about that. I died a month after you were born, at the most. I could never be there in body, but I've always been here in spirit. And I always will be. Sweetie, you have to know, I'm so proud of you."  
  
"But I'm a major-league screw-up."  
  
"No, you were just going down the wrong path. But you realized that and started on your own way, towards redemption. You could always break out of that jail, Faith, you know that. But you didn't, because that would be that would have been wrong. I couldn't be prouder. I love you, sweetie."  
  
Patti Halliwell started to fade. "I have to leave now, you've made your choice. Good-bye honey. I'm always here." And then she was gone. 


	20. Chapter 20

Faith stood there, not knowing what had just transpired. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone stir. Thinking it was Buffy, she turned to address the other Slayer.  
  
"Hey, Sleepin' Buffy, good ta see you again."  
  
"What?" That wasn't Buffy's voice. And it wasn't Buffy who was moving. Much to Faith's surprise, it was Amanda. "That really hurts." The Whitelighter said, sitting up. "What happened? Looks like I've been out for a while."  
  
"Yea, no kidding." Faith said. "You gotta heal them." She said, pointing towards everyone.  
  
"That would be a good idea. What the hell happened here? Looks like a bomb went off."  
  
"Yea. A Faith-bomb."  
  
"You did this?"  
  
The Slayer nodded. Amanda grinned in approval as she went to tend to the others. She started with Xander, Anya, and Giles; the ones who were out first got the first treatment. She moved on to Tara next, who was so close dying Amanda almost couldn't bring her back. Then Willow, Cole, and the rest. No one had died; even though a lot were so close it was scary.  
  
Spike stood up and surveyed the setting. "Slayer! You did this, huh? Nearly slaughtered us all, but that was a damn fine light show. At least, what I saw of it."  
  
Faith nodded absentmindedly. She walked over to the Charmed Ones, who were standing in a loose circle. "Can I talk to you guys for a sec?" She asked quietly.  
  
Phoebe noticed the haunted look in Faith's eyes, and put her hand in the Slayer's. "What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."  
  
"Not funny. I think I did."  
  
Prue understood first. "You saw Mom, didn't you?"  
  
"Yea. She told me to make a choice. Go back to jail and finish my sentence, or go live with you guys. I don't wanna impose or anything."  
  
Piper shook her head. "If you would like to come live with us, I'd definitely be happy to have you." Prue and Phoebe made noises of agreement.  
  
"Not to spoil the happy family moment, but are you sure this is what you want, Faithy?"  
  
She looked around. Everyone was frozen in their positions, and she had a hell of a time getting out from under the multiple grasps of the motionless Halliwell sisters.  
  
"No." She shook her head. "Enough dead people. I've made my choice, and you can't control me anymore."  
  
Mayor Richard Wilkins III shrugged. "Have it your way. I offered. Have fun with your new friends. But don't forget-I'm the only person who loved you. The father you'll never have."  
  
"You weren't family." She spit out. "You were an evil snake demon. Now LEAVE!" She screamed the last word, and the Mayor disappeared. "That's more like it." She said, as the people around her starting moving again.  
  
"Do dead people always visit you guys?" She asked, more than a little shaken up.  
  
"Yep." Phoebe said cheerfully. "They like to pay visits every once and a while. Don't worry, you get used to it. Mostly."  
  
Buffy tapped Faith on the shoulder. She felt awkward disrupting their little moment, but it had to be done. "We're heading back to my house. Are you guys coming?"  
  
"Yes. Hey." Piper looked around. "Where's Amanda?"  
  
~Up There~  
  
"Amanda. Glad you're ok, we were watching the ordeal." Emily said.  
  
"I'm glad too. Trust me, it feels good to be alive. Ok, not alive. But not dead either." She frowned. "Whatever. Now I'm confusing myself. Just checking in, making sure the demon/vampire hybrids are actually gone."  
  
"They are. And we have some more good news. We have something you need to see."  
  
"Oh, um, ok." The Whitelighter followed the Elder down the long corridor to an open door. She looked inside and gasped.  
  
"Oh my God." 


	21. Chapter 21

Faith nodded. "She probably went to talk with the other angels or whatever. Yea, we're coming." Buffy understood that they still needed more alone time, and had the others hang back a bit to give Faith and her new sisters some space.  
  
"Are you sure you want me livin' with you? Maybe you haven't heard the stories, but I'm sorta a criminal. Wanted in 3 states and everything."  
  
Piper waved her hand in dismissal. "So? Are you evil or whatever anymore?" Faith shook her head.  
  
"Nope. Got this whole redemption gig going."  
  
"And Mom said that you could choose? Then that means the PTB are somehow going to erase whatever was on your record." Piper murmured, more to herself than to Faith.  
  
"I think we're going to have a very interesting time together." Prue spoke up.  
  
"Duh. I thought you were the smart one?"  
  
All three sisters laughed. "You have a lot to learn." Phoebe ruffled Faith's hair, and her sister glared. "Ok, maybe that's something we don't do quite yet."  
  
"Sorry, not quite used to spontaneous displays of affection."  
  
Angel walked with Buffy towards the front of the group. "This is good for Faith. Maybe she'll finally find the family she wants." Buffy looked up at him, and he was almost certain he could read her thoughts. Angel slipped his hand into hers, and they walked that way.  
  
"Hey!" Xander jostled Anya. "Buffy and Deadboy are holding hands! I don't like what that implies."  
  
"I thought you were over her, Xand." Willow said from his other side.  
  
"Well, I am. But still, she's one of my best friends. I hafta look out for her."  
  
"Or is it because you loathe him with all your being?"  
  
"Ahn! That's so...Ok, that's a lot of the reason, but you weren't around the last time he got all happy. Pretty, it was not."  
  
"You must care nothing for her feelings, I can tell how happy she is around him, and you want to sabotage that because you dislike him? Typical man." Anya looked disgusted.  
  
Xander looked to Tara for help. "I'm sorry, Xander, but Anya's right. Buffy glows w-when Angel's around. Don't you see it?" He had to admit that he did, and Anya looked smug. Spike walked next to Tara, who was behind Willow, Xander, and Anya.  
  
"So, what do you wager the Slayer and the big poof get together?" Spike asked her, while he lit a cigarette.  
  
"The poof?" Tara asked, baffled.  
  
"Angel. The great hair-gelled one."  
  
"Oh. Um...I-I don't know. Isn't their something that doesn't work with them? I've never heard the full story."  
  
"Really. Then, pet, you're in for a treat."  
  
"You know that they're talking about us?" Angel asked Buffy.  
  
"Let them talk. It never bothered us before."  
  
"Spike's filling Tara in on our history. Embellishing a bit too, if that's even possible."  
  
"Spike!" Buffy called over her shoulder. "If you so much as finish that sentence, I will make you wish you were dead."  
  
"Yes ma'am." Spike said forlornly. "Spoil my fun, Slayer!"  
  
"That's my job." She said happily. Buffy suddenly stopped in her tracks, floored by a thought.  
  
"Buffy? Are you ok?" Angel asked, worried.  
  
Her eyes were shining, and he hadn't seen her this happy in years.  
  
"Not only am I very-ok, but soon we will be too." Angel didn't know what to make of her babbling, but he went along with it.  
  
"What do you mean?" And she told him.  
  
Xander was talking to Anya about something involving Snoopy when Willow yelped. Xander jumped and looked at her.  
  
"Will? What's the matter?" She didn't say anything, just pointed at Buffy and Angel, who had stopped walking and started kissing.  
  
Xander grinned. "Bout time, you two. But can't you get a room or something? On a gross-scale of 1-10, that gets an 11."  
  
Back at Buffy's house, they were discussing the events of the last few days. Well, everyone except Buffy, Willow, and Dawn. They had slipped away as soon as they got into the house, probably to talk about Angel.  
  
"That was wild! I mean, 10 demons? Usually not that fun. But DAMN, did that kick ass. Can we do it again?"  
  
"No, you psycho! That was not fun at all. You're not the one who got all bruised. I did, and I'm sore." Anya said defensively.  
  
"Chill, I was jokin'. Mostly."  
  
"Don't joke about things like me being almost being beaten to death. I can think of more amusing things to do than being pummeled. Like-"  
  
"Ok, change of subject." Tara said quickly. "Um...Angel, what's LA like?"  
  
Willow sat cross-legged on Buffy's bed. Dawn leaned against it, sitting on the floor, and Buffy had spread herself across the bed. They were talking about boys.  
  
"Buffy! I want to know what happened! One second, you're walking, and the next, you're making the bestest smoochies I've ever seen! Are you two back together now?" It felt good just to hang out and gossip again, like they were normal teenagers. Of course, they were anything but.  
  
"I don't know. You said it yourself, Will. Its so fast....But if everything works out, then yes, we are." The Slayer was beaming. If her smile got any bigger, it would have enveloped her whole face.  
  
"This is huge!" Dawn said. "I mean, you two, are like, the cutest couple ever!"  
  
Her big sister laughed. "He hasn't gotten any less cute, I can say that much."  
  
"Duh! There should be an intelligence requirement on who should be the Slayer or something."  
  
"Dawnie, don't push it. I'm happy, but not too happy not to beat up my little sister."  
  
"Um, LA's ok. I only see the demon-part of it, so probably less fun than you'd think. Surprising Fyral population, though."  
  
"Really?" Giles said, taking off his glasses and rubbing them on his shirt. "I had the impression Fyrals didn't particularly like crowded places."  
  
"Me neither. See, that's the thing about these demons integrating themselves into our culture. It's a lot harder to figure out their next move if they up and change their feeding patterns."  
  
And the conversation continued, much to everyone else's dismay. Giles and Angel weren't the most interesting people, but when you put them together, they were just boring. Xander motioned for everyone to follow him into the kitchen, where they could talk about anything but demons. They'd had enough of them for the day. When everyone except Giles and Angel had left, they stopped talking.  
  
"I wonder if they knew that was all bull?" Angel said, absentmindedly twirling the calldagh ring on his finger, which Giles noticed with interest was pointed inwards towards his heart.  
  
"I doubt it. They don't know anything about demons, except which end of an axe kills them most effectively. So, in any case. What was it you wanted to ask me about?"  
  
"My God are they dull! I think I fell asleep three times listening to them go on, and on, and on...." Xander made snoring noises, and Prue lightly smacked his shoulder.  
  
Piper sat down in one of the chairs at the counter and stared out the window into the backyard. It was almost day, and the first rays of sunlight were starting to show. Phoebe walked up behind her and rubbed her shoulders.  
  
"It's ok, we're here for you."  
  
"All of us." Tara said, smiling a little.  
  
"Yea." Xander cut in, grinning lopsidedly. "Whether you like it or not, you've made some friends, and we're impossible to get rid of."  
  
Amanda grinned as she orbed in front of the Summers house. She walked up the front steps and opened the door. She didn't see anyone right away, so she went a little bit farther into the house. She saw people in the kitchen, so she went in there.  
  
"Hi." The Whitelighter said softly. "Piper, can I see you outside for a second?"  
  
"Um, yea, sure." Piper stood up and followed her out of the house. As soon as she saw, she started crying. "Leo?" 


	22. Epilogue

"Hey honey."  
  
Piper ran and threw her arms around him. "You're...alive."  
  
"More or less. Amanda told me I gave you all quite the scare."  
  
She just nodded. "I was so afraid. I didn't know what I was going to do without you."  
  
"And now you won't have to worry. I'm here, and I'm ok."  
  
Amanda quietly snuck back into the house and went into the kitchen, where everyone was looking at her. "I have some good news."  
  
"What's up?" Cole asked.  
  
"Leo's alive. And outside with Piper right now."  
  
Phoebe gaped. "How?"  
  
"There's this whole deal where since they didn't exactly exist to begin with, if the demon/vamps were killed, everything they had done or anyone they had killed reversed. For example, Leo."  
  
"That's incredible." Tara breathed.  
  
"Angel?" Giles asked. "There was something you wanted to ask me?"  
  
"Yea, sorry. I'm trying to figure out how to phrase it. You know that I care about Buffy very much, and that she values your opinion above everyone else's. We're sort of together again, and I wanted to ask your permission to see her again. As in, going out again."  
  
"I don't know. You have a business to run, and she has a life. How do you expect this is going to work? And you're both adults, I don't see why you need my permission."  
  
"We have this whole plan. If it works out, he's gonna move Angel Investigations to his old mansion, bringing everyone back with him, if they want."  
  
"Wait a sec, Buffy. Does that mean Cordy would be coming back?"  
  
"Nothing's final yet, but most likely, yea. She like, runs the business or something like that. Whoa, scary thought. Cordelia in charge of an entire company..."  
  
"Don't want to think about that any more, it gives me the wiggins. But I can't believe you and Angel found a way to be together! I'm so happy for you!" Willow gave her best friend a hug. "Buffy, you haven't told us your plan for making this work. 3 years and you couldn't figure it out. I'm dying to know."  
  
"Sorry, Will, forgot you didn't know. You're a big part of our plan anyway. Can you permanently restore Angel's soul?"  
  
"I see. That might just work. And you have my blessing." Giles smiled.  
  
"Thanks, Giles." Angel smiled back. "That makes all this a lot easier, knowing you're fine with it."  
  
"Well, of course. She's so happy around you, and vice versa. I couldn't dream of stopping you."  
  
Piper led Leo into the kitchen. She wouldn't let go of him if her life depended on it. Her sisters beamed at her, and they both wrapped him in a hug. When Phoebe pulled away, she whacked his arm.  
  
"If you die again, mister, I'm going to have to kick your ass. Think of it as a warning."  
  
"I missed you too, Phoebe." He laughed.  
  
"Aw, you know I'm joking."  
  
The atmosphere in the room was light and cheery, while everyone made plans for the near future. Faith was going to go to San Francisco to stay with the Halliwells, and Angel was headed for LA again. He wanted to get everything tied up, and give whoever wanted to come some time to get ready and move.  
  
The next night they said their good byes. Everyone traded phone numbers and emails, promising to get together soon. Amanda pulled Willow and Tara aside.  
  
"You know how I said they were going to assign you guys a Whitelighter?"  
  
They nodded.  
  
"Well, they did."  
  
"Really?" Willow said excitedly. "Who is it?"  
  
Amanda grinned. "Me."  
  
"No kidding? That's great!" Willow hugged her, and Amanda made choking noises.  
  
"Does she always hug that hard?" The Whitelighter asked Tara, who smiled a little.  
  
"Only when she's really happy."  
  
The rest of the scene was just as pleasant. Buffy and Angel wouldn't stop kissing, swearing to call each other all the time. Faith and Prue were already fighting over something, no one was sure what, but they ended up laughing. Once everyone had piled into cars and driven off, Buffy stood in the doorway to her house with Willow and Xander.  
  
"Well, that was different." The Slayer said. "Can't say I'm not happy about the turn of events, though."  
  
"Well, yea! You got Angel back, who wouldn't be happy? Except for Xander, of course. Don't worry, Xand, I'm sure you'll get used to having Cordelia back in town."  
  
"What? How does Cordy factor into this? I thought she wasn't ever coming back."  
  
"Things change." Buffy said softly, leaning against the doorframe.  
  
The End!! Thanks to Darklight and BigBad for getting me to finish this,  
hope ya'll liked it! Don't forget to review on your way out!! ~Amanda 


End file.
